


Metamorphosis

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e04 The End, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:21:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>end!verse. Vaguely fluffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metamorphosis

Before the apocalypse really starts rolling, Dean’s actually got a lot to be thankful for.

He likes waking and getting on the road immediately; he likes the watery roadside coffee, the cheap beer. He likes trading insults with Risa as she needles him for his marksmanship; he even likes the long days on the road, trailing past abandoned towns, looking for survivors. It’s a dark existence, and a lot of it rends him bones from flesh – but some of it is good, too. Makes him smile, however briefly.

The run home is a strange thing, every time. The camp isn’t  _home –_ not really – but it’s the closest thing they’ve got, and it’s where everything Dean loves lives, now. He can swing out of the cab of the truck, hit the ground with both feet, and feel instantly somehow better –  _brighter –_ than he was on the road with dust in his eyes, squinting past housefires to see the horizon.

Castiel waits for him on the porch of his cabin. He’s a little weird, these days, but it’s nothing horrific; Dean thinks maybe he’s just getting comfortable, maybe he’s just _happier._ He won’t talk about his brothers and sisters any more, but he reads. He’s taken up smoking; he’ll have a drink, with Dean, in the evenings. Maybe the biggest change is that now, he smiles. Dean sees the irony of that with ease; he doesn’t have to be reminded.

He told Castiel once, years ago on some minor hunt with Sam,  _don’t ever change._ He barely remembers the circumstances of it, now; Castiel showed up out of the ether, probably, and saved their hides. In the early days, he was always doing that – now, it’s pretty hard to get him out of bed.

Dean smiles at him as he hefts his bag across the yard, and drops it on the wooden porch, at Cas’ feet. Cas looks down at it; looks up at Dean. Lines crease around his eyes.

“Is that for me?”

“Present.” Dean murmurs, and pushes past him, but hangs in the doorway, waiting, before he goes in.

Cas stoops, and picks up the bag; he unzips it. Inside are clothes, and for a minute, Cas looks perfectly mystified. “I don’t get it.” He says, turning to Dean, and Dean kicks him in the ankle, gently.

“Found it on the trip. Thought they’d fit you.”

Cas looks back into the bag, and then shrugs. “Thankyou.” He says, and Dean shrugs in return.

“Don’t mention it.” The camp is swathed in balmy heat; there are mosquitoes everywhere, and the windows of the cabin have had nets nailed to them since Dean left. It’s been two weeks since they last saw each other; when Dean goes into the cabin, there’s an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs lying on the floor, and the bedclothes are strewn everywhere. Dean wonders, sometimes, if anyone comes in here when he’s not there – but, really, he doesn’t want to know.

Cas drops the bag and kneels beside it when he gets into the cabin, following suit after Dean. He pulls a shirt from inside the bag, and lifts it to his eyes; it’s blue, v-neck, some loose, hippie shit. The bag is filled with old t-shirts; with drawstring pants, featureless things. He hadn’t really thought, when he picked it up, beyond  _this would fit Cas._ Now, looking at Cas sorting through the clothes, he wonders if he  _likes_ them.

Rather than fixate, he goes into the bathroom; he pulls off his shirt, glad to get out of the heat, and bends over the sink, to look at his face. He looks older, somehow; but maybe it’s the light. From inside, safe from eye contact, he calls to Cas.

“You like ‘em?” He says, and Cas doesn’t reply for a few moments.

“I like them.” He says, eventually – but when Dean comes out of the bathroom Cas is stretched out naked on the rumpled covers of the bed, with a paperback lifted above his face. Dean’s missed him. It knocks him sideways, a little, seeing him like this; Cas is frequently naked, and even more frequently it is in front of Dean, but this carries different weight, somehow.

They’re alone, and it’s warm, and Dean hasn’t seen him for two weeks, and now his lungs somehow feel full, again.

He doesn’t really know how to phrase it.

He doesn’t try.

He goes over to the bed, to where Cas is lying. The book is  _Metamorphosis,_ by Kafka; he’s been into the europeans, ever since a run where he found a collection of stories by Camus.

Dean crawls over to him, and plucks the book from his hands. He holds it in the air, out of Cas’ reach, but he doesn’t grab for it; just looks up at Dean. Placid. Expectant.

“You like ‘em?” he asks, again, meaning the clothes, and Cas blinks dully.

“They’re fine.” He says. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it matters.” He isn’t sure why. Cas is lying beneath him, naked, and all Dean can think about is the sack full of clothes lying discarded on the floor.

“Oh.” Cas blinks. “You  _missed me_.” He says, like it’s some great revelation, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Sure I did.” He lifts the book further out of reach when Cas sits up to catch it – but he needn’t have bothered, because Cas isn’t reaching for the book at all; he’s reaching for _him._

Cas pulls him down – Dean’s kneeling on the bed, and he has to bend to reach him, Cas sat up on his elbows – and he catches Dean’s bottom lip between his own. The sound it makes is soft, half-wet, and Dean blinks. Cas is so close that he can’t really see. “Yeah.” He says, surprised. “Yeah, I missed you.” He says, again, and Cas laughs, and pulls him down.

He’s got a lot to be thankful for.

The world’s going to hell; there’s fucking  _zombies_ everywhere, practically; poison is covering the earth. On his run, Dean saw a child half-eaten on the ground; he saw mothers turn on their babies. He saw things he can’t even put words to; things there aren’t names for. He’s seen more blood in the last year than he has in his lifetime, and that’s saying a  _lot._

Cas is different now. His voice is rougher every time Dean sees him; he laughs at stupid jokes, and sometimes he doesn’t make sense. Dean remembers a year ago, when he walked into a motel bathroom and saw feathers fucking everywhere; rimming the sink, twirling down the drain, stuck in clumps around the base of Cas’ sweating back, stuck to the floor tiles, the ceiling, the shower curtain. He saw the loss in Cas’ eyes; saw the hope, when Dean came in. He didn’t know how to brace his hands against it, how to compensate Cas for losing  _everything,_ and gaining only bruised and battered Dean _._

He’s got a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to regret. He doesn’t know if this will end; if this thing with Cas will even  _begin._ He doesn’t know if they’re headed for victory; if the Devil will get them all, or if they’ll kill themselves on the way.

He doesn’t know anything, really, but he can know this. He can know the pattern of light on the bed, streaked with thin net-lines from the windows nailed shut. He can know the noise Cas makes when Dean takes him in hand; the way he breathes, gasping, crying out, the way he says Dean’s name. He can know the nakedness, the humanity, of what was once incomprehensible; and he can hope that Cas still knows him; will still  _want_ to know him, next time he goes away for two weeks, and comes back lost and in need of an anchor to pull him straight again.

Maybe it’ll last. Maybe it won’t. Maybe they’ll live.

He couldn’t call it  _love;_ but family, maybe, will do, for the minute. In a pinch. For now, it will have to.


End file.
